A Few Fun Photos

On downloading photos today, I realized it has been a while since I posted any. Here is one from about ten days ago, soon after we combined all animals. If you look closely, you can see cows, sheep, and goats.

And a fun picture of Cheri, Phil's mom, who jumps in to help. Here, she is mowing over some trampled hay. We hope that will break it down more quickly, so it adds organic matter to the soil. In this first year, we have hay stay on the surface of the soil for months. We need to get the microorganisms breaking it down much, much faster.

While I spent a frantic hour or so watching Bianca yesterday, doing, apparently, nothing out of the ordinary, Isaiah spent an idyllic hour with the sheep. He just sat in the shade of the riding mower, and skittish Bethlehem, our first lamb survivor (born right around Christmas, in the blizzard). When I expressed surprise that Bethlehem didn't run away, he said, "I helped untangle her from the netting a few times, and now we're friends."

Isaiah is not known for his patient silence, so his hour of quiet peace was beautiful to witness.

One day last week, I had been in the office trailer, talking to Phil. When I came back, I found this.

Joe had fallen asleep standing up! I loved this little view of his belly. His potty training gets better every day, though I'm still not confident of his anticipation or communication to allow him sans diaper in public.

Quick comment: the Causticum homeopathic remedy was VERY effective. After several days of bed-wetting, I gave him two little pellets (full dose is five). No bed-wetting. The following night I bumped the dose down to one pellet, and he did wet that night. Five more nights of two pellets was 100% effective, and after those five nights, I stopped giving him anything, and he hasn't wet since. Excellent.

K-Mag Applied

Phil spread 400 pounds of K-Mag around the orchard today. We are so pleased to get the minerals on the ground. Most of our trees have grown very well: straight up. Phil read that the lack of lateral growth means that the trees are lacking in magnesium and copper. K-Mag will supply both of those.

We were so thankful that, after the fiasco of spreading minerals last fall, Butch's little spreader worked well. Phil did get stuck on stumps a few times, but managed to free himself.

After a little discussion, we decided that we would mow the weeds down while he spread the minerals. We considered having the sheep rotate through again, but we want our grass to grow a little taller before we send through the sheep. But the weeds are tall enough to graze now, and they will shade out the grass. So our sheep will consume purchased forage, but our orchard will hopefully grow well.

The other interesting thing that happened was that the pigs escaped while we were moving their pen. Thankfully, they enjoy
whey and I lured them back easily.

Our guinea continues to sit on her nest. Since Phil discovered the nest, 24 days have passed, so the keets should hatch in the next four days, if they ever do.

Labor Imminent? Or Delayed?

When Phil came in from chores this morning, he said, "I think the cows are getting ready to calve." That had been my thought lately, too. I noticed Bethany had a swollen vulva earlier this week (and I read about uterine prolapse, which made me wake once in a cold sweat, convinced that I was going to have to stitch the baby back in side).

Bianca's back end has now also swelled up. Phil noticed a viscous fluid oozing out of Bianca this morning; that could be the mucus plug, in which case, labor is imminent. (It could be something else, I suppose, but I don't know what.)

We purchased a used commercial refrigerator on our way home from church. With the promise of milk to come, our teeny dorm fridge and the motor home small fridge are not, we hope, going to be sufficient. I had looked at cragislist at intervals for the last several months, and never saw a commercial refrigerator. Didn't see one in the local swap paper, either. This week, though, I checked rather randomly, and there was one for sale, for the exact price I had in mind. God so faithfully provides!

When we reached home, Bianca's head seemed lower than normal. She lay down, and, while we sat in the car and watched, stood up again. That's a sign of labor!

The book said to check certain ligaments for loosening. I am not sure I checked the right ligaments, but what I felt, felt relaxed. But maybe I'm just feeling skin?

In watching Bianca closely, she appears, at times, to strain. I watched her urinate, and while she did so, she panted heavily, and continued to strain for a few seconds after voiding. A contraction? Maybe. But it is so infrequent; can it be labor?

Ack! What a learning curve!

And what makes it worse is that we thought we saw two contractions about two minutes apart, right as I was on my way to a ladies' night out with women from church. So I stayed home, and spent an hour watching the cow do pretty much nothing. I hate making the wrong choice!

After a short nap, I awoke to strong fears about birth. With a 50% live rate of sheep, and with such a strong desire for healthy calves, I am fighting panic.

Farming is not for the faint of heart. But sometimes I am faint of heart.

P.S. We decided what to do about Fern, if her AI didn't take. We considered buying a bull for Fern, just in case she isn't bred, and then either keeping the bull for the cows in a few months, or killing the bull for meat for us.

I think we've decided not to purchase a bull. We might change our mind, but for now, we're within three or four months of the cows needing to be bred. If Fern's AI didn't take, maybe we buy a bull in December, and use the bull for all three cows.

I'm hoping the AI takes, though.

P.G. Wodehouse

The last few days, I've tried to write my posts with the boys' favorite radio program, Adventures in Odyssey playing in the background. Since I recorded them off the radio more than a decade ago, and my siblings enjoyed them all repeatedly, too, I have them half-memorized, and it suppresses the creative muse to have the noise in my house and my head. QUIET!

I am thankful the boys are learning valuable life lessons, but the inability to escape the noise is one of the more challenging aspects of living in 224 square feet.

Phil has run errands every day this week. He stopped by Costco yesterday, on his way home from picking up K-Mag, which we plan to spread beneath our trees. Apparently, a 200 pound/acre spread of this once a decade will help the copper levels in our trees, which keeps their trunks elastic.

We hope to avoid the trauma of mineral spreading last year: 200 pounds for two acres is much easier than 3000 pounds for five acres.

But I digress. Phil stopped at Costco and happened to see a DVD series he (and, subsequently, I) desired, and bought: the complete Wooster and Jeeves, done by the BBC and based on the books by P.G. Wodehouse.

If you haven't read any Wodehouse, and have a bit of free time, he is quite funny, in a British humor, slapstick sort of way. Not everyone's cup of tea. Before the farming bug hit, I realized that Phil spent about $25 a month on coffee beans, and I treated myself to $25 in Wodehouse. (Whether that is incredibly parsimonious or incredibly profligate I suppose depends on your point of view. For a period, I had read so many missionary biographies about people around the world in dire circumstances, I had a hard time spending much at all on "fun" purchases for myself. Hmm. Which is probably why I can live as we do now.)

I would recommend the Blandings series. My absolute favorite, which left me (literally) screaming with laughter, is Full Moon.

The boys and I joined Phil down at the lower pasture this afternoon. He had been lumberjacking much of the day, and cleared enough of the bank to find our one spot of easy access, where we can just walk all the way down. The boys played in the creek and Phil showed me his progress through the brush.

We're wondering now if we could bush hog some of it. There are plenty of large trees that a bush hog couldn't take out. And we can't really take out the trees until the brush is gone. Maybe it's a catch-22, and there's no real help but manual labor. But, wow, does it take a long time.

The Lord Is Good to Me

Phil and I have discussed how to graze the neighbor's land. We're paying for hay right now, and the forage growing next door calls to us.

I suggested that we simply move them up with the electric netting that's held them in the last week. We've had sheep, goats, and cows all together grazing.

However, Phil hesitated to move the animals into the neighbor's land without a strong perimeter fence. Should the netting fail, how would we possibly recapture them?

His wisdom proved right today, when we went outside to do chores and found all 20 animals happily grazing where they pleased. We suspect that, since we hadn't electrified the netting, the cows snagged the fence on their horns, and took it down. (That Fern is one smart cow. We witnessed her systematic take down of netting later in the day.)

We both wandered around the animals, shaking our heads in disbelief. I was ready to get them some new minerals, when suddenly one of the large cows (due almost any day—for the next two months) mounted another cow.

Suddenly I realized: it was FERN she mounted. Fern was in standing heat!

I called Phil in disbelief—this was five days later than I had calculated her heats. He was fairly dismissive until the big cow did it again.

We called Giovanni, who came, yet again. (In answer to previous query: we were charged the paltry sum of $10 transit time and $22 per AI. Should AI work, it will be quite a deal, compared with the price of purchase and upkeep for a bull!)

Phil and I barely managed to get Fern corralled before Giovanni arrived. In between another brief deluge and Fern's prescient caginess, which allowed her to slip away long before she should have known that we wanted to corral her, Phil had quite the task to round her up.

All three of the remaining straws we had ordered exploded on thawing. For whatever reason, four of our eight straws were defective, and when Giovanni went to thaw them, they popped. In fact, the quickly thawing semen shot out of the top, and stayed, two inches up. Giovanni held the bottom of the straw, and as it warmed, the semen sank back in; or, most of it.

Between the three defective straws, we hope that one took.

We saw such a hopeful moment, too. When Giovanni first went into Fern's backend, a huge blob of mucus came out: a great sign of fertility. And it was the right degree of clearness/cloudiness! So great.

At this point, we've done all we can do. We have to figure out what to do about a backup bull now.

SWAT Visits the Neighborhood

While I was working on math with Jadon, we noticed a helicopter drone overhead. One pass; two. One minute; five.

Phil came in after a while and said, "There's a bunch of cop cars parked at the top of the driveway. About six guys in camo, with assault rifles, just ducked into the field across the street. They brought a K-9 unit, too."

Apparently, he and Isaiah had gone up to watch, when suddenly Phil realized that, if there was going to be a shoot-out, he and Isaiah could be in the line of fire. When he asked a cop near the cars whether he should send Isaiah away, the man (probably lying) said, "We're not looking for anyone." Ha. Assault rifles and camo just because it's kind of fun? Whatever.

Our neighbor filled us in later. The helicopter, circling, had spotted pot growing with their infra-red goggles. SWAT guys went to the vacant land across the street in order to find the growing patch and remove it.

They removed several bags of the contraband. But, as our neighbor said, "Why didn't they bust the illegals up the street making speed?"

Well, that was the first I'd heard of the den of illegals making highly addictive substances, but I would agree: get rid of the speed lab.

And 12 pot plants hardly seems terrible enough to warrant tax payer dollars for helicopter, SWAT, and hours of search and destroy.

High drama in the country. And the only part I witnessed was the sound of the helicopter.

Focus on This Moment

I was reading Numbers 16, and came across another verse that really struck me. Korah was angry with Moses, and said, "thou hast not brought us into a land that floweth with milk and honey, or given us inheritance of fields and vineyards."

It struck me that Korah was angry over something that was his own fault (his and the other Israelites). God had brought them to the edge of the land, and they refused to go in.

And it struck me that Korah was angry too early. The Israelites were brought into a land of milk and honey. The Lord kept his word.

But Korah did not see it.

Good reminder to me: stay the course.

I liked the verse in chapter 19 that said, "bring thee a red heifer without spot," because I know what red heifers look like. Maybe they were Devons. (Though not named such, since Devonshire was not yet founded.)

And to round out the wonderful Numbers observations: God told the Israelites to kill the first of all cows, sheep, and goats as a sacrifice, but the meat was for them. Interesting that, should the meat be not terribly good-tasting, at least the line would end then, and the mother wouldn't be bred repeatedly. I suspect bad-tasting meat was rare in Israel.

Melanie suggested that I report on what has worked well in my garden, and not just report on the failures. I am happy to say that we have okra almost every day, despite planting only a small patch, about 2' x 2'. I planted a transplanted Sungold cherry tomato, and since i have been more faithful watering, I get 20 to 50 small tomatoes every day. They usually don't make it out of the garden (heh heh heh), but I have been well-fed.

Other than that: the corn grew tall, but did not fill out in the husks. More water next time. I have pulled quite a few onions, and I like them. I think, though, that I did not make the bed deep enough, as the onions are half-exposed. Now I know: deeper beds.

Gardening is more challenging than I expected.

We had two inches of rain fall in the night. It sounded like a flood, and Phil and I did not sleep well. Rain is a good sound, but I kept thinking of the tent of tools down in the flood plain. What if the chainsaw washed away?

No flood. Chainsaw still usable. All is well.

Phil continues to clear a path for our fence. He cut down a tree in his path last week, and only later realized that it had fruit on it: a pawpaw! Too bad, but there's nothing to do about it now.

As children head back to school, and students head off to college, I've been reflecting on the swift passage of time. I hugged Jadon yesterday and wailed, "You're almost ready for college! You will leave me, which is good, but I will be so sad!"

He shrugged me off and reprimanded: "Focus on this moment!"

Wise beyond his years, and oh, did I laugh!

Forbearance

Abraham and I went out at midnight last night (he had taken a late nap and didn't fall asleep until quite late!). All animals appeared to be just fine; they were having a midnight snack in the moonlight.

This morning, Isaiah noticed Fern mounting one of the babies (our yearling calves); Toots was in standing heat. Isaiah also said he saw one of the babies licking Fern, but I didn't observe it. Perhaps she went into heat in the night. Perhaps she's bred. Without standing heat, we won't call Giovanni again. Cautiously hopeful, we'll wait until the next cycle. And maybe the one after that.

Phil and I pulled soil samples this morning from our land and the property next door, which we're now care-taking for the owners in absentia. I think our soil is better this year than last. Or maybe we just pulled samples in slightly different places. But I am optimistic that it is more well-balanced than before.

In the afternoon, we moved the chicken house. So far, we've been moving it downslope only, so we could push it. Today, though, we had to pull it upslope. The truck handily pulled it up into one of the cows' paddocks, but when Phil went to drive it out of the paddock, the wheels spun freely in the muck (hardly an inch—it didn't seem deep enough to lose all traction). Phil finally had me drive while he pushed, and I think I gunned it a little too hard (the clutch and I have never been friends). He was sprayed with dung, but took it in good humor.

While the boys and Phil went swimming, I stayed behind for a bit of quiet. I was reading through Numbers and came across the story of the spies who saw giants in the land, and returned and said that it was too hard to conquer. Chapter 14 begins thus:

And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness! And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.

This story always used to make me wonder what on earth the Israelites were thinking. I mean, God had worked mighty miracles to get them out of Egypt; he'd worked more miracles to provide for them (and chastise them) in the wilderness. Why didn't the Israelites get it?

But today, I realized what they were thinking, and it was very sobering for me. For me, since we moved, there have been times (especially at the beginning) when I have wondered if all the ways God has provided in the past have been leading up only to a cataclysmic flop. I've wondered if God was stringing me along, providing in smaller ways so that when all of our savings, all of our retirement, all of our previous home's equity was gone, then we'd be destitute. And that way we would learn something about how powerful God is and how he can smoosh us at will.

Obviously, a very twisted view of God.

To write that out now, months after I last felt like that, I grieve for my little faith. If God provided before, he will provide today, too. And tomorrow.

And I am thankful for the forbearance of the Lord, who did not destroy me (as he did that generation of unbelieving Israelites).

Thank you, Lord.

What a surprise!

We watched Fern all day long. She showed no symptoms of heat, which is promising! I'm not entirely persuaded yet, since one of the babies had been going into heat the same time as Fern, and she, too, showed no sign of heat. So maybe the warm weather today prevented heat. We'll keep an eye on her.

I went down to the pasture late this afternoon to see if Fern would stand for me, as she does when she's in heat. Phil was headed down to the pasture and we stopped to look at the animals.

"Is Annabelle dead?" he asked.

And, bizarrely enough, YES! Annabelle was dead. Very newly dead, but definitely dead.

Ten days short of a year since we got her.

Phil mentioned, in retrospect, that she hadn't seemed as chipper this morning. But still: just because a son has a little tummy ache doesn't mean that I expect him to turn up dead later in the day. Too surreal!

She had been laying in a dry water tank. When he moved her out, he noticed some milk in the tank. Her bag looked a bit larger than normal. If she had just given birth, we would have said milk fever, since she showed no sign of symptoms and then was dead. As far as I know, she was still nursing her two bucks. I've never heard of milk fever more than a day after giving birth.

Mastitis didn't appear to be a problem, as her udder was pliable and soft. She didn't have an obvious parasite load, and her pelt was luxurious and free of bare patches. She really looked perfectly healthy.

We spent the next several hours disposing of her into the compost pile. We took out her innards, both to see if we could determine the cause of death and to allow her to decompose more quickly.

Her innards looked perfect. All the right color, with a nice layer of fat, so she didn't starve to death. Her esophagus appeared clean, so it didn't look like she choked to death. Her skull wasn't deformed so, presumably, no cow stepped on her head. She did move off of lower pasture to the upper pasture, but that shouldn't be too bad a change in forage, as none of the other animals appear to be in bad shape after the move.

I don't think she died of poisoning, since none of the other animals are sick. I don't think she died of bloat, since she's had some fresh greens to eat and some hay.

Her black bucklings did not appear to be suffering from heat exhaustion, but perhaps, if she had a cold and was feeling a bit off, heat exhaustion killed her. That's our working theory, in absence of any better ones.

In any case, we're praying protection for the rest of our animals.

If we only knew what killed her, we'd feel much more secure. As it is: we don't know what to expect. Lord, please protect our cows!

The Great Deluge That Didn't Happen

As Phil drove home Wednesday from his morning meeting with guys from church, he heard about a flood warning for our area. Since our cows were still in the lower pasture, in the flood plain, we brought them upslope when he got home. This is better for hay delivery, too: the road to them is awfully steep and slick, and the lower pasture gets soggy at times. With the daily rain we've had, we weren't sure how we'd get a hay bale to the cows.

The cows had done a good job cleaning up the pasture. If you look at the "Potato Harvest" entry on August 1, you can see the same view as the one above, just two weeks later. Below is the interior of that pasture, along one of the "cow trails." They really ate everything from about 5' down, except the wild roses.


Or another view. Before.

And after.

After we moved the cows (thankfully, without incident), we spent some time getting everything ready for the deluge. I planted some lettuce seeds, and we pitched hay to the animals.

But while it did rain a bit, we didn't have anything close to a flood. It strikes me now that I almost felt cheated at the time: where's a good natural disaster when you're prepared and ready?! Maybe I should be thankful instead that our fence remains standing. Goodness gracious.

Phil has been reluctant to clear the rest of the lower pasture. The truck has a leaky hydraulic fluid hose, which means he has no power steering and the brakes don't work that well. (!) Even if the ground were firm and dry, which it isn't.

But without the truck to haul his stuff, he was looking at carrying his chainsaw and protective gear (Kevlar chaps to keep him from cutting off his leg, hard hat to keep him from braining himself with a falling log, eye covers). Also fuel for the chainsaw and bar oil, so he can refill after an hour of heavy use. Then an ax and hatchet, a needed beverage (by appearance, I would not be surprised to find that he sweats quarts, if not gallons), a peavey to help roll logs out of the way, and probably another item or two I'm forgetting.

That's quite the quantity to haul. So instead, we set up a tent in the lower pasture where he can leave his equipment overnight. So practical! Now he just has to haul liquid down.

He spent about four hours this afternoon cutting brush. He was stung again before he located the ground bees' hive. Now we know where it is and can leave it alone. It's maybe 18 inches from a small trio of trees. Phil wonders if they built their nest in the roots, so when he chainsawed the three trees down, the bees were not happy. Their entrance is maybe the size of a penny: really small.

After four hours, you can see, in the photo below, Phil walking down the path he'd just cleared. (What?! You can't tell there's a path there?)


He actually did make great progress clearing: the entire swath in this photo, plus a little more, now has a section of open land, so he can fence there along Hog Creek.

I love our creek.

Phil spent some time today putting all 21 ruminants in the same fencing. The sheep had escaped the triple strand wire, and were grazing at will in the upper pasture. No, no. So now we are trying out the cows in the sheep's electric netting. So far so good.

Speaking of babies, I was thrilled yesterday to read what is, I think, the solution to our calf problem. Should both calves live (as we hope), I had read and been advised to 1) pull the baby off the mom immediately and feed replacer (no way!) or 2) keep the baby on the mom and milk what you can. This is more natural, and I can understand the benefits to the calf. Obviously, mother's milk is the best for growing strong and lasting animals. But we sort of want milk for ourselves, too, and I think that gets more difficult as the calf continues to grow.

Well, Kate Yegerlehner of Illinois wrote an article on Nurse Cows. Basically, we would let both calves nurse their mothers for a few days. Then we would move, say, Bethany's cow to Bianca. Bianca would nurse the two babies and not milk at all. Bethany would be only a milk cow and not nurse at all.

This avoids all the hassle of trying to separate babies from mothers at night, and provides a (hopefully) constant supply of milk.

I LOVE this idea. I like it so much, I told Phil that we should get another bred cow so Fern will have company (and a nurse cow) when she gives birth. Phil stared at me in amazement: "We're trying to destock and you're looking at buying another heavy eater? We don't even know if we like dairying yet!"

Right.

And we are watching Fern like a hawk. She will be 21 days from previous heat tomorrow, so now we will know if her previous AI took. Oh, do we hope so.

P.S. Jadon is 3000 days old today, I believe, and I forgot to tell him while he was still awake. Blast!

To the Movies!

Ken treated us to Toy Story 3 (in 3D!), while Cheri took Joe and entertained him.

I laughed. I cried.

Would I want to watch it again? I don't know. Since the theme is growing up and the painful change that accompanies that, it's not light entertainment. And the bad guy is really, really bad, including imprisonment and interrogation by torture. That went a bit beyond.

It has a great caper escape, and a great, bittersweet ending.

But, my, was I tired when it ended.

I left with a profound thankfulness that I am not, by profession, a movie reviewer. I don't know how they do it.

The quote that I thought of, although not really related at all, comes from Newbery Medal book Elijah of Buxton.

The body is not made to endure. There's something inside so strong it flies on forever.

Saturday, Sunday, Monday

Phil puttered around the farm on Saturday, doing little odd jobs that need to get done, like scything and mowing. In the late afternoon, he headed down to the unfenced section of lower pasture and began to clear along Hog Creek. I went down later to stand amazed at the dense thickets he hacked through, the junk trees he'd cut down.

His time was cut short by cutting through (near?) a stinging insect home. Whether ground bees or hornets or what, he didn't stay around to find out, but turned off the chainsaw and ran.

When we went back later, he cautiously grabbed the chainsaw, as angry stinging insects continued to fly about. How to proceed? We shall see.

I spent time continuing to clear up my poor, neglected garden. I picked a single cabbage plant and was astonished at the number of orange and black cabbage shield bugs. Blech! I squished and squished, and finally carried the whole plant to the compost bin, where I trust the chickens made short work of eggs and caterpillars.

I planted some winter greens (collard greens, mustard greens, kale), and planted another bed, today, to beets.

On Sunday, we carted, as usual, many dozens of eggs up to church. We have faithful purchasers there, and that is a great encouragement, to have friends who buy our eggs and love our eggs.

We stopped at Whole Paycheck (er, Whole Foods) while we were in town, and I found a homeopathic remedy for bladder incontinence/bed wetting. Alone among our children, Joe has struggled with bed wetting. I do realize that children grow out of it at some point in their first decade, but if a homeopathic pill will help him, I would appreciate a less-stinky mattress. I'll keep you posted on whether it works.

I've been amazed at times with the immediate efficacy of homeopathy. Whether oscillococcinum (ah sill o COX i num) for the flu, or aconitum for general ill; whether arnica for trauma or arsenicum for food poisoning (for our roommate in Boulder, not for us!); whether apis mellifca for bee stings or nux vomica for stomach upsets: these are inexpensive remedies that do no harm and do much good.

Today started blazing hot. We've had a few cooler days, and we huddled inside. I went out around noon to get some fruit, and wondered if I should water my garden.

Within fifteen minutes, we were having an incredible downpour. I mean, I know it rains in Virginia, but we got over an inch in about half an hour. Water was streaming through our A/C, running down the walls. We could look through the sheets of water on the windows at the woods, tossed by the most wind we've had since we've been here.

And then, a half hour later, the sun came out and the heat was gone.

For dinner, we had rice bowls, with garlic, onions, and okra from our garden, pork and eggs from our animals.

I am getting chubby, eating so much delicious food. I keep thinking, "I am really only hungry enough for one small helping." But then I'll have three. Or four.

I've never been prone to gluttony, but I am becoming acquainted with that vice, I fear!

Late Breaking News: The Snake Is Dead

Phil ran in at 10:30 and said, "Hey, Amy, come see this snake!"

Why would I want to do that?!

"You should tell me if I ought to kill it!"

Our first broody chicken and chicks had started a racket. Phil went out with his headlamp and gathered up a frantic chick. As he was about to set it down, he realized that the surface of the pallet perch was moving. (Shiver shiver!)

I didn't want to get very close, but with ax and shovel, headlamp and flashlight in Ken's hand, Phil killed the five-foot snake.

A Google search showed it was a black ratsnake, a common snake in this area, usually about 5 feet long, black with faint markings left over from juvenile days, happy eater of small birds (harumph!), active on hot summer nights, able to climb trees (eww!), with a strong constriction ability (as Phil found when he knocked it off the pallet with the ax. Shiver shiver!).

Perhaps a 5-foot-long snake could have had some benefit, but I really didn't want it alive. If it's trying to eat my chickens, it's life is forfeit.

I had a similar moment earlier today. I had dumped a bucket of compost on a garden bed when something about toad-size scuttled away.

An enormous brown spider, egg sac under belly, was hiding from me. Years ago, I had read a Reader's Digest article about Brown Recluse spiders, and how their bites turn necrotic (disgusting!). I remembered the article saying they had a violin-like shape on their back. As did this spider.

I sought to kill it with a stick, but it moved away. As a good mother ought, she didn't abandon her eggs. I became a Charlotte-killer, because I thought, "If this spider's babies hatch, and my boys are bit by a brown recluse, who would be to blame?"

But this evening, I realized that a brown recluse is, well, plain brown, with a distended abdomen.

What I had feared was a wolf spider, which may have a mildly venomous bite, but usually does not. From Wikipedia: "Wolf spiders are unique in carrying their eggs along with them in a round silken globe, or egg sac, which they attach to the spinnerets at the end of their abdomen. The abdomen must be held in a raised position to keep the egg case from dragging on the ground, but they are still capable of hunting while so encumbered. Also unique to wolf spiders is their method of infant care. Immediately after the little spiders hatch and emerge from their protective silken case, they clamber up their mother's legs and all crowd onto her abdomen."

Next time I see one, I will let her live.

Knowledge is a wonderful thing.

(Speaking of which, my beautiful yellow barn friend spider, now gone for several weeks, was an orb weaver.)

We Have Visitors

Yesterday Phil's parents came for a visit. It is a nice break for me, as the boys have uninterrupted grandparent time, which leaves me a bit of extra time to work and putter.

Phil walked around the lower pasture and realized that he couldn't see the goats. We hadn't seen them the day before, either, so presumably they got out. Somewhere. Oh, well.

Today we rolled a large hay bale all the way from the top of the upper pasture to the lower pasture. Ken, my father-in-law, drove the truck in front of the hay bale: it was our bumper. Phil pushed the hay a bit from behind, and tried to steer it. I helped with that a bit and managed the gates.

But with all of us working together, we did it! The 2000 pound hay bale really did make it into the cow pen without taking out any fencing, without running away down the wrong slope, without any animals getting out of their appropriate pens. Wonderful!

I spent a little extra time in the garden today, and managed to get two of the beds ready for fall planting. My root crops of a week ago have come up nicely. I think I prefer fall gardening to spring or summer: maybe because it feels like I actually have some success?

We had a very Lykosh farm intensive dinner: burrito bowls with pork, onions, garlic, okra, limes, and lard from our land. (Beans, rice, and spices were not.) Great!

In a bizarre final note to the court case: we received a bill from the county for $10. The judge had fined Phil $100. Somehow, in the checkout process, someone added on a $70 court fee. How that happened, we're not sure, but there was plenty about this kangaroo court that smacks of extortion.

Phil went to pay the $10 fee, but the man at the desk said, "No. You owe $170." So had we only paid the $10 bill via the mail, we would have been in arrears. After all, we did hear the right amount, and therefore should have known that we owed the full amount.

The whole thing leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. Overall, I have loved living in Virginia this last year, but this experience: maybe not so much.

Jadon and Isaiah: Champion Weight Lifters

Shortly after the boys woke up, Jadon went out to get an apple and Isaiah followed shortly afterwards. I had taken the fruit boxes out of the car, but hadn't moved them inside. Really, there isn't much space for me to move them inside.

I was hard at work, and vaguely realized they had been outside for some time. Perhaps they had gone to play in the well tailings or something, so I didn't think much about it.

Twenty minutes later or so, Jadon came in and said, "The chickens were getting the fruit. Isaiah and I moved a box into the barn." Yes. My 8-year-old and 6-year-old had carried an almost 50-pound box of fruit the length of the barn, and hoisted it up onto a table over waist high. (First they had thrown out all the fruit with massive pecks taken out of them.) What dear, dear boys.

The weather continues hot. I made bread, and went to check the temperature; as I picked up the thermometer, I noticed it read 112 degrees. Ambient air temperature; not in the bread.

Isaiah was climbing up onto the top bunk, and fell hard on his back, right onto the plastic bucket we use for storing toy cars. But, once again, the Lord's protection covered him, and he stood up, bawling, with nothing worse than a raspberry.

I made a BLT for Phil and I: bacon from our pig, bug-eaten lettuce from the lone remaining head in our garden (it was quite bitter), and almost-ripe tomatoes from my garden. Even though I burned the bacon, I still enjoyed it.

Phil opened the compost pile to add more material, and we were stunned to see nothing but a few bleached bones from Chrystal. The microbes went to work very quickly. The pile was hotter than we'd ever measured before, too: over 130 degrees.

We moved the four big sheep from the apple orchard down slope. We had hoped to combine them in the lower pasture with the cows and goats, but they are quite difficult to herd; we were fortunate to move them at all. Those big sheep had been eating the apple trees, and that makes my blood boil. We are ready to dispatch at least one of them once the weather cools a bit.

The final note from this day of interesting events is that we are cutting gluten entirely. We had avoided it for a couple of weeks, but I find it hard to give up the ease of baked bread for breakfast or lunch. But within three days of bread consumption, the boys were picking at each other and weepy. Joe, usually Mr. Sunshine himself, cried for almost three hours. Unheard of. And I felt despair.

No thanks. I can figure out alternative menus in exchange for emotional stability.

I wondered about gluten over the winter when we had our foster daughter, but at the time, I couldn't add one more level of complexity. It may have made our lives easier, though, had we avoided bread.

After Apple Picking

The three younger boys and I returned to an orchard I visited a year ago in order to pick apples and peaches. That orchard has about 1900 trees in not a very large area: they have a high-density planting, at about a 5- or 6-foot spacing between trees, with maybe 8- or 10-feet between rows. (By comparison, our trees of about the same size are on an 8-foot spacing in row, and 12-foot spacing between rows.) Very compact.

Their trees, planted in 2000, have trunks the diameter of a large grapefruit. Next to our carrot-sized trunks, they looked absolutely enormous. And laden with fruit. The reality of what our orchard could produce (potentially about 17 tons of fruit), all in apple, peach, and cherry sizes, and the amount of work required to harvest all that fruit, hit me, just a bit. We definitely have our work cut out for us.

With temperatures again nearing triple-digits, no one wanted to work outside much. Phil did attempt to spray some more of his rootlet-growth mixture, but the constant pumping required made him give up. Hopefully before he gave himself tendonitis. We should look for a sprayer that would work mounted on the back of our truck (and, someday, a Gator). Save his arms!

He is constantly amazed at how much the cows eat. When we first put the animals in the very dense lower pasture, he wondered if they would ever be able to keep ahead of the growth, or if they would basically be in a state of perpetual eating, never able to get ahead of the rampant growth.

I, the pessimist (ahem: I would prefer to say "realist") figured it wouldn't take the cows more than four to six weeks.

Neither of us would have anticipated the actual reality: they have just about exhausted their food stuffs in that acre. Phil walked around today and figured they were about done. Back to feeding hay tomorrow. Bummer, bummer, bummer.

Some days contain more disappointment than others. For Phil, this was more of a downer day.

But yesterday he had suggested that we start a daily "I'm thankful for ..." comment, as he would like us to be characterized as a family of thankfulness. The boys' thankfulness yesterday was fairly random (Jadon said "gummi bears," even though he hadn't had any for weeks!).

But they had very sweet ones today. Phil was thankful Isaiah didn't break his neck when he bounced off the trampoline. I was thankful Joe didn't drown in the stock tank when he decided he'd go swimming in there unattended (!). Jadon was thankful Joe didn't die when he fell backward off the stepstool (I didn't even know about that one). Abraham said, "I really liked picking apples. I just really like apples." And Isaiah was thankful for applesauce.

Happy 08/09/10!

I spent a very little more time in the garden. Isaiah helped me pick three small ears of corn. They were fairly tasty. I found yet another enormous tomato hornworm, and tried to pry it loose from the plant with one hand. I literally could not do it, but needed both hands. That one I was so disgusted with, I crushed.

I also found an empty snake skin on the side of my newly planted fall bed. It didn't make me enthusiastic to dig and turn over the soil, knowing "the personification of Satan" (as my friend Jill would say) inhabits my garden, lurking, somewhere.

Phil spent some time this morning sharpening his chainsaw blade, and then re-cut the little saplings that have resprouted in the stone fruit orchard. He decided he should probably take the chainsaw in to have it sharpened professionally, as his efforts didn't make much difference.

He also started clearing the next section of lower pasture, but felt perplexed at how to go about it most effectively. With the fencin we have, and with the unknown dimensions—how to enclose the space with too many unknowns?

He decided that next time, he'll fence along the creek first, and work from there.

This evening, he took our laundry to the laundrymat. Four weeks' worth of laundry in one evening. What a guy. I am looking forward to having more clean clothes, and freshly washed kitchen towels. (And, less you imagine we have dressers overflowing with clothes, to allow us four weeks between washes, let me assure you that such is not the case: we just practice questionable personal hygiene and re-wear clothes multiple days in a row.)

He even folded most of it, until the place closed at 11pm! What a guy!

Joe Turns Two!

Phil moved the sheep from the cherry orchard to the apples this morning before church. He made a large pen for the sheep, and let them graze in among the apple trees. This is the first time we've allowed that since the first week, when they figured out how to knock the trees over and defoliate them. Now, though, the trees have grown enough, the sheep appear to ignore them. And the pen set-up goes much quicker when all he has to do is make a large square.

I got to do the nursery at church today, which means I was in a corner of the room where all the children were. I had a six-month old, Joe, and another girl a bit older than Joe. We had a great time, playing and trying to understand baby talk. At one point, the older children had gone outside, and I had the baby drinking a bottle when the girl needed to go potty. So all four of us walked to the bathroom, the two toddlers whispering "shhh!" as they went. Poor Joe's pants needed a belt, as they kept drooping down to his ankles, so it was quite the little walk: bottle in baby's mouth while I carried him, pull up Joe's pants one-handed, try to figure out how to help the young girl get onto the toilet while still caring for bottle baby.

Parenting is not for the faint of heart!

Joe is two today. This is the first second birthday we've celebrated when I have not either had a new baby or been halfway along with the next pregnancy. Before I am pregnant again, I hope to figure out how to conquer morning sickness. I had gone without eating for a while earlier this week and had the same symptoms of morning sickness: queasiness, extreme fatigue, soreness all over, inability to function. After I ate (and ate and ate), I recovered easily.

So if I am actually suffering from a nutrition deficiency for 12 weeks or so during pregnancy, I need to figure out how to avoid that, so I can be a functional mother of many, and help meet to my husband.

For now, I rejoice in having brain cells to function at capacity.

And I like to laugh at Joe's antics. Jadon and he adore each other, and they make each other laugh. Joe must have been thinking about Jadon one morning a week or so ago, when he suddenly burst into belly laughs in his sleep.

After Bible study, we came home and I made extremely rich brownies. Joe knew exactly what to do with the candles: he started blowing as soon as he saw them lit. I doubt he made a wish, and it's a good thing, since, with the number of blows he needed, he would probably be about 57 before they came true (and Isaiah eventually helped him).


I've been struggling with my bread lately: it never seems to get quite done. I remembered, though, that a meat thermometer, inserted into the loaf, should read 200 when finished. I tried that today and it worked well. (The loaves didn't hit 200 until almost twice the expected bake time. No wonder they've been almost raw!)

A few other things to share. I was reading the latest Mother Earth News and saw a blurb about First Day Cottages. On a square footage basis, for what you get, these appear to be about the most reasonably priced homes on the market, and I think I've moved away from yurt and into the First Day Cottage camp. The smallest model, with a full basement, would be only a few square feet smaller than my parents' home, and they raised four children quite easily in that space.

I have had a notice on the Local Harvest website, and I finally received a request for eggs. Sadly, the gentleman wanted 375 dozen eggs per week (for his chain restaurant), delivered three or four hours away. I don't know how much land we'd need to generate that amount of production, so we had to turn him away.

An article I read about school food explained why schools do not buy much good quality food for their children. One district gets $2.86 per meal, and of that, $1.68 goes to labor. That doesn't leave much for actual food. In one district, the families became proactive. They bought a cow and had an auction for the high-end cuts of beef as a fundraise, then took the ground meat and used that to feed the students. Smart! (from a Joel Salatin article in Stockman Grass Farmer)

Finally, I don't worry too much about my animals eating poisonous plants. As long as they have enough forage in their pen, I've expected them to be smart enough not to kill themselves. In another article, I read this: "It appears that eating small doses of toxic plants are a way animals prevent internal parasitism." So those bits of poisonous plants are a natural dewormer. Excellent.

With much good cheer, we rejoice in this day that the Lord has given us.

Grace and peace to you!

Spray for Rootlets; Forest for Cows

Earlier this week, Joe discovered the comb. His hair was damp, and he stood in front of the mirror and combed his hair straight up over and over.

It made me laugh that that was the style he chose for himself, since Isaiah absolutely refuses any hairstyle other than perfectly flat. I've seen him with spiked up hair, and it looks very cute on him, but he is not interested. How different each boy is!

We walk down daily to see our cows in the lower pasture. Each day, we can see more of the terrain. I love it. Rather than thigh high weeds, we have a groomed area. Rather than dense underbrush and vines so thick we could see hardly five feet in any direction, we're beginning to see shrubs and trees and dips and rises. The cows and goats wander around, creating pathways, and we follow them and enjoy them.

Phil is talking about fencing the other 2/3 of the the lower pasture. He could potentially get it done before September, and then they'd have time to graze before frost winter kills the forages. Over the winter, then, he could cut down and mill the trees into boards, and have the pasture ready for next year.

Since the cows don't need to eat hay at the moment, the first broody hen and her babies have taken up residence at night on top of a hay bale. The chicks have a hard time flying up there: they climb onto little perches, and run around and around the bale, until they finally decide they have no choice but to flutter. Then, up they go!


As I worked in the garden today, I found two more nasty hornworms on my tomatoes. I threw one far away, and the other I donated to the chickens. It took them a while to be interested, but eventually they pecked it and, I suppose, ate it.

I fixed up one bed: weeded, mineralized, reformed, turned over. To the boys' delight, I planted radish seeds, as well as daikon radish, turnip, and rutabaga. I will hope for a good crop, and now that it is not quite so hot, I might even water on a regular basis. Last fall, without running water, I would manually water with five-gallon buckets, and still managed to get a crop. May I have better success this year.

Phil spent many hours spraying the orchard with a spray intended to improve the rootlet growth of the plants. Our manual pump backpack sprayer takes about 7 hours to spray 20 gallons on an acre. Larger farms mount a sprayer to the back of a tractor or ATV-type vehicle. That would certainly be more efficient, but until we have such a device, manual spraying it is.

If we could grow more rootlets, that would be the fastest method of increasing good soil. Plants put out roots, and the roots have little rootlets. The rootlets constantly die as the plant continues to grow, sort of in a waves of growth, out and back. We could certainly use more good soil!

While he walked and sprayed, he came across several trees that have been defoliated. Not by deer, but by caterpillars. He came across one leaf that, on the underside had five pencil-thick caterpillars lounging.

We haven't paid much attention to integrated pest management, the name for keeping trees alive from pests, but apparently we should have been more alert.

Mowing Reveals Guinea Nest

For the first time in (what feels like) months, I spent a couple of hours in my garden. I had hoped to finish new, biointensive beds by now, but since I didn't get to it yet, I figured I could clean up the beds I already have and plant there.

With the rains this week, things are growing again. We've eaten a little okra three or four times this week, and I like it, fried in plenty of butter, sometimes with a couple of eggs thrown in. The boys aren't too keen on it, but that's okay.

I found two tomato horn worms on my tomatoes. No wonder I've had basically no crop. I can't believe how large they are: fatter than my middle finger. And they poop plenty! I captured them, because I was too disgusted to try to smoosh it. How many guts would come out!

I didn't plant anything new, but the current garden has hope now of growing better. I had left some weeds to grow up around the edges, since I wondered if the extra sun would burn the plants. In the spaces where there was less (or no) shade, the plants are largest and strongest, so I think I will keep the plants growing in full sun.

Phil has been scything and mowing quite a bit. After the sheep eat all they can, he figured out that if he scythes the woody stuff first, then uses the John Deere mower afterwards, it gives the most finished, groomed look. And almost our whole cherry orchard has been grazed. It didn't take the sheep long!

While Phil was scything, he came across a nest of about 20 eggs, all but three guinea eggs. (Remember, of our five guineas, we have four males. The lone female paired up with one of the males, and they have been separate for about a month. She suddenly stopped laying in the nesting boxes, and we haven't been able to find her nest.) The broody guinea must have been away temporarily, since every time we've wandered over since, she's been sitting on her nest. Based on the time we've had no eggs from her, and the number of eggs in her nest, I would estimate that she has been sitting and hatching for about two weeks, so she has about two more weeks to go, since guineas need 28 days to hatch their babies, a full week more than chickens.

Guineas are not very good mothers, and I wonder if she hatches the chicken eggs, a full week before her own emerge, if she will cease sitting on hers. We shall see.

The amazing thing is, she is pretty hard to spot when she's nesting. Can you see her above? (She looks like a log or a piece of bark.)

That should make her more obvious.

Phil found a box turtle, too, and brought it to us inside. Box turtles can pull in legs, head, and tail, and shut up their shell so that there is absolutely no flesh exposed. I held the turtle, and the sudden motion as he emerged startled me. He began to thrash his legs, as if crawling in the air, and I set him down. He crawled swiftly for a dark spot: under the dresser. I had a vision of a starved turtle dead under the dresser, smelling up the place, so I snagged him just before he reached his hideout.

Jadon, not traditionally the most animal-friendly of my children, held the turtle briefly before we put it back outside, where it belonged.

Phil has also figured out how to contain the escape-happy pigs. He strung electric line around the top edge of their pen. They shock their sweet noses and haven't made the effort to escape. I'm thankful. The barrows (castrated males) were a bit larger when we bought them, and they continue to outstrip the gilt (unbred female). I don't think it's merely because they push her out of the way for feed: she holds her own. I think she just doesn't gain as easily as the males.

It could be that that was part of the reason our pigs of last winter were so expensive: both females.

We had a great dinner: pork butt (which, for the uninformed, is actually pork shoulder; why they would name it after such an unpleasant part of the anatomy is beyond me). Also onions, okra, and lemons, all from our land.

We're no where near self-sufficient, but that's a good start!

We Open Up the Lower Pasture

On Monday, we had friends from Boulder visit us for a few hours. I love that believers can have instant connection on a deep level. And I was really pleased to hear the wife gasp, "Did you plant all those trees since you moved here?!" I think there's a sense for me sometimes like I'm just treading water, that little changes, that the land is almost the same as when we moved.

How gratifying to hear a complete outsider express surprise at the quantity of our progress.

That was the good on Monday.

The very, very bad on Monday was that Phil had his court date. He truly expected a verdict of Not Guilty, since we are legally allowed to live on our land, but are not legally "residents," as we do not legally have a "residence."

So he felt pretty beaten up when the judge said, "Guilty!" Phil asked, "Can you do anything to help me at the DMV?"

"No," said the judge.

And that was that. Guilty without remedy. No way to be not guilty. If he's pulled over again, without a change in our status, he faces jail time.

Tuesday morning we woke up under a heavy cloud. Perhaps not quite depression, but pretty extreme disappointment. The ruling felt unjust. Jesus, too, faced an unjust judge. How painful it must have been, and I never really considered it, thanked him for it.

I spent the day in pretty intense prayer. We think we have a plan now, and are no longer in despair.

Today Phil drove around looking for new pipe to get water to the lower pasture for the cows. But people in Virginia do not have sprinklers, and five stores had no pipe.

We scrounged leftover tree irrigation pipe, and even used a regular hose, but eventually managed to get water to the lower pasture.

We strung up a path for the cows, just a single strand of unelectrified wire, and gradually drove the five cows and three goats the 600 feet or so to the fenced in pasture. They ran down the slope, whether in eagerness to reach the new forage or in panic at the new environment, we couldn't tell. But all eight animals are safely corralled in about an acre of heavy underbrush now.

I almost cried to see them in forage up to their bellies, with junk trees and vines for them to nibble and begin to clear. The spaciousness of an acre, where, due to trees and other growth, we can't see the entire area at once, is so expansive, so rich. All the animals took great mouthfuls of greens, nibbling a bush here, wrapping a happy tongue around some weeds there.

It made me wonder if the cows had been depressed in their paddock. In any case, they seem ecstatic now. I hope they put on good flesh before the leaves fall, that the babies, who have been steadily losing condition, again look round.

Changing topics, the pigs continue to get out every day. Thankfully, we have fed them long enough that they don't go off our property, but it is startling to come across them in the orchard or by the sheep. So far, they have outwitted six innovations to keep them contained. Perhaps the seventh will be the charm.

Pointy ears escape; floppy ears stay put. So far, this rule of thumb is proving true at Spring Forth Farm.

Potato Harvest

Giovanni the Vet came at 11pm on Friday night, and again at 6:30am on Saturday morning, and did AI on Fern. It went much faster this month than last month.

I asked him about the extra teats that our three heifers had. He, a dairymen by birth, said we shouldn't worry about them; too bad that they weren't removed at calving, but not worth the surgical removal now. And certainly not a big enough problem to remove them from breed stock. I was glad to hear that!

I also asked him if we should look for a bull, in case this round of AI doesn't take. He said that, since we have the straws already, if it were his heifer, he would try once more.

I am going to trust that we won't even need that.

After Giovanni left on Saturday morning, Phil and I went up to move the sheep. I came across my long abandoned potato patch. Four months ago, I had envisioned an acre garden, interspersed with the cherry trees, that would provide us with all the vegetables we could possibly need. As such, I planted the potatoes in the upper corner. Then unexpected (to me) frosts came, and I figured the potatoes all died, so I didn't water them, cover them, or care for them in any way. They were on cardboard with a thin covering of hay, and that was it.

Incredibly, I still had a few potatoes to dig up! Pink, maroon, brown, and tan, round and oblong. The total came to just three pounds, but the three pounds were so pretty!

Next year, I will either do traditional, dirt-mounded potatoes, or put them directly on cleared soil (pig-cleared, perhaps?) and cover them with spoiled hay. Then they would have nutrients from the soil, but cleanliness and ease of digging from the hay.

And I will keep the patch much nearer our dwelling.

I decided I disliked the flattened cardboard eyesore, so I began to clean it up. I left the hay, and found a few more potatoes, so it even felt a bit exciting.

Then I turned over a bit of cardboard and upended a spider. I glanced at its belly: black spider, scarlet red belly. Black widow! Two inches from my hand! I think I obliterated it, since i saw no trace of it on the bottom of my shoe. But it certainly damped my enthusiasm for cleaning up the cardboard.

Praise God for his protection, yet again.

Phil had a triumphant day. After less than a month of very intermittent labor, he finished fencing the first part of the lower pasture.

What a tremendous amount of clearing he had to do! I am eager for the cows to clean up the massive growth down there.

Prudently, he wants to wait to bring the cows and goats down until he has a way to water them. Early this coming week, that should be done.

This was a week of good progress for Phil. Above, you can see his new shelves in our metal barn: feed stacked, almost like Costco!

Speaking of feed, I read in the magazine Mother Earth News that we could cut our chicken feed half with corn, and that, since corn is half the price of feed, we could save some money. It sounded good to me, so we've been doing that for a month.

It struck me suddenly: perhaps the reduced production (now running about 75% of what it was a month ago) was not only the result of warmer weather, but also change in ration. And Phil wondered if I was really saving that much by feeding corn. I checked the bags, and my corn was only maybe 20% cheaper than our top quality feed.

What was I thinking?!